


Daisies

by MistyBeethoven



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Anger, Coping, Cops, Death, Doctors & Physicians, Dogs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fear, Fear of Death, Goodbyes, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Husbands, Inhumanity, Loss, Love, Mortality, POV First Person, Pain, Pharmacies, Promises, Reflections of mortality, Sad, Sad Ending, Self-Reflection, Serious, Soulmates, Terminal Illnesses, Wives, letting go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 09:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20356402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: Helen Wick contemplates her mortality as she buys one last gift for her husband, John Wick.





	Daisies

**Author's Note:**

> In an accumulation of pain and rage, I remembered the tree and planted a seed which grew into this story.
> 
> I don't like anger. I'd much rather feel sorrow.

The odd thing about death, the thing that they rarely tell you, is how you come to mourn for yourself. I know this very well; I began my grieving the moment the Doctor told both John and myself that I had this foul disease and that my prognosis was not good.

I can remember the way that John tightened his grip on my hand, scared even then that I would slip away from him. I remember too the look in the Doctor's eyes, like for just one moment he wanted nothing more than to lie to us; he wanted to say that there was some chance that I may survive but could not bring himself to do it.

It's just as well: John would have made sure that he died as well for offering what could only have ever been false hope.

Sitting there with my husband's hand too tightly grasping my own and with a Physician's reluctant eyes on me, I felt myself hit by a sudden wave of grief for myself; for some me that did not exist. She would never bear a child; she could not grow old with the husband she adored; she would never even see how her favorite television show, Grey's Anatomy, ended.

You see, you start to think about all the things that you should be able to do but won't be given the opportunity to. And life will just carry on and not give a care because it never really believed that it owed you anything in the first place. 

And while you're doing all of this mourning for yourself, you spend most of your time trying to make sure that everyone _else_ is okay. You can see their own grieving, and loving them so much, you start feeling guilty that you are causing them all of this pain even though it is out of your hands. You are eventually going to have to leave them to go off to wherever the dearly departed are sent following that last difficult breath and final heartbeat.

Though you wish to God that it wasn't there, a certain resentment starts to creep in because you're trying to be strong and take care of everybody else that you don't have room for you and your own pain. And you never want to break down or start releasing all of this pain and anger that you are feeling because of the fear that if you do you may just die the next second and that wouldn't be the note you wanted to end off on. So you keep it to yourself but it only adds to the heaviness that has started to weigh down on your heart. The heart starts feeling too burdened with all of this suffering to beat normally.

Yet it beats on regardless determined to stop in its own predestined time.

* * *

Sometimes I stare at John and I think that it would have been better if our lives had ended when we were holding one another following his impossible task. Or maybe afterwards when we were lying in each other's arms after having made love; a bad idea considering the shape he had been in, his persistence having won out in the end.

By "ended" I don't mean death. That's _something_ and requires its own proper time to happen. I simply mean that I wish that _that_ had been the end of the story and we simply and abruptly vanished from this existence, like the characters in a book or a film. It's almost as if they exist in some flat world which just drops off when the main story is finished being told.

But real people live in round earths.

Fairy tales do not end when happiness is won. The prince and princess kiss and then they start fighting or one gets sick, you just never really see it. You think their lives end on that sublimely beautiful moment until you open the book again or turn on the TV.

Lives are more like Greek tragedies than they are fairy tales and I hate to admit it to myself or to have to tell you this too. There are no snake haired hags or winged horses; that was all for show. Those lovely Greeks were just trying their best to hide it from us by putting in all those mythical things. Or to just try to make it more _interesting_ because lives tragedies can be so mundane sometimes. It's a car accident or cancer not a hydra or minotaur.

I look at John and I see Orpheus more than I do Prince Charming. But then I'd rather have the former than the latter because, old Orph was far more interesting and more faithful. Charming seemed to be with everyone from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty, some vacant pretty boy with no great character trait. It was always perfectly understandable to me why Beauty chose her Beast instead of that inane piece of royalty.

Orpheus bled and he truly mourned for his Eurydice 

Enough to venture into Hades for her.

I worry about what Hades will swallow my beloved husband after my death. He keeps telling me that I saved him and I keep feeling like it was only a momentary period of grace. I see the pain in his beautiful dark eyes and I can see his own anger there now as well. We really did become one flesh not only when we said our vows but when we first saw each other. That was all it took: one look.

But now part of that conjoined soul is going to be taken and I'm afraid that the other side will not know how to survive even though a woman called The Director taught it exactly how to.

I hope to God that he won't return to _that_ particular Hades.

Please God. Never that one. He's too good for that and it would _not_ be fair.

* * *

I am alone in the house. It is a rare occurence these days. I am going to die soon, both John and I know it, so he does not leave me alone anymore. Today, though, he needed to go somewhere. Although he doesn't tell me, I know that he has gone to finalize my funeral arrangements. He is trying to spare me but the truth sits there between us unspoken but known.

I want to ask John to have daisies at my funeral or to place them on my grave but I keep hesitating because all I keep thinking of is that old saying concerning death and my favorite flower and I stop.

But I have always loved them so it makes it hurt all the more.

I go to take my medication and learn that I am short by one pill. This house is beautiful, John built it for us both, but suddenly I feel as if it is choking me and my empty bottle of medication seems as good as any excuse to escape. I climb into our other vehicle, and decide to go to the pharmacy.

As I drive there, I look at the trees and I grieve for the fact that I will never see the leaves fall to the ground and attempt to cover it in some fiery natural quilt again. I wonder if the trees remember the leaves they have lost or contemplate their deaths before each winter. Trees are born again every spring and their leaves return. While my soul may find life elsewhere my body, when dead, will have no such spring. At least not until some promised future paradise.

Outside of the pharmacy, I pull over and wave to Mr. Young, who is sitting on the bench outside. Time has made his name a misnomer and yet I find myself coveting his many wrinkles and what remains of his hair, now all white.

I don't know why, but I stop to stare at the bulletin board to the left of the Pharmacy's entrance. It contains the usual garage sale notices or statementd of items that have been lost or found. Among them I see a sign advertising beagle puppies for sale. They won't be ready for a little bit but it is claimed you can come and claim one in advance.

Feeling somebody at my shoulder, I turn to find Gayle Mason standing there. I no longer like her although we were once close. She is the type of person who is friendly to your face but secretly looking for any way to hurt you. These can range anywhere from talking behind your back, hurtful comments supposedly made as jokes of helpful critiscms or down right ignoring you. Of all the three, the last is the most preferable.

She also fancies my husband which has never sat well with me for some strange reason.

"Hello Helen," she greets and even now her voice is as sickeningly sweet as a bag of pot-pourri that you'd buy at a dollar store.

I am not in the mood for this but I nod politely. "Hello Gayle."

"And how are you?" the bottled blonde asks and I know from the way that she studies me that she already knows; she only wants to make me say it.

"I could be worse," I say which is true: I could be dead.

She smiles and it is as false as her hair. Before she can ask me how John is I excuse myself to go and have my prescription filled.

As I wait in line at the Pharmacy for my bottle of medication to be ready, I hear Mason talking somewhere in the store. She has one of those voices that is precise and clear like a bell. You can hear it from a far distance and it usually can alert you of her approach so you can get the hell out of her path. John and I usually joke about it and he often says his former colleagues would wish all their targets possessed a voice like that to make their work easier. Though John says he was good enough not to need such assistance he often comments that he wishes that he still was an assassin so he could have the pleasure of getting rid of Gayle Mason. My husband very rarely kids about returning to the world that he managed to escape from but Mason warrents such temptation. 

Today her form of attack is back talk. I hear my name mentioned as her and assumably the front cashier discuss me.

"Poor dear looks wretched," Gayle says. "She'll be pushing up daisies soon, poor John."

The words from her lips are a bitter reminder of my earlier thoughts and I look at the daisy bracelet around my wrist. It's funny how some days everything mocks you and suddenly the things that once brought you joy can wound you.

My prescription filled, I stumble out of the Pharmacy. Gayle Mason is gone and so is Mr. Young and I fall on to the bench outside of the store, suddenly very weak and in more pain than usual. The physical pain is constantly there and I can deal with it; it is the emotional pain that is more difficult and draining.

The cruelty of people is one thing I refuse to grieve for. Every time I encounter it I can't help but think of a poor little boy, soon to die himself, talking to a boar's head on a spear on an island populated by other children, who will be this boy's murderers. I will not miss the little cruelties and general thoughtless words that people throw at other human beings. Maybe it all stems from insecurity. Maybe it makes somebody who is secretly afraid feel better to make the object that has triggered their self-hatred feel worse. I will never understand it, though. When I sense a fault in myself I have always felt guilt over its existence and have tried to overcome it as best I can.

I will also never understand how often it turns out to be somebody you used to like and always tried to show kindness to. Why do humans treat you worse the better you treat them yet will bend over backward to please somebody who doesn't give a damn? Are cold hearts, as Graham Greene once wrote, worth more than warm ones?

I don't mind saying goodbye to this world if they are. I hope that when I am gone that people are kind to John. Animals are better in the way that they can never utter a careless word that hurts you.

I am not aware that I am crying until Jimmy pulls up in his police cruiser.

"Are you all right, Helen?" he asks softly as if I may fall apart simply from the words he is asking.

"Yes," I answer folding my hands in my lap. "I'm just tired."

He nods in understanding. "Want me to take you home? I can drop your car off later."

I smile and accept his offer.

Only it isn't home where I ask him to take me.

* * * 

Looking at the small beagle puppies I try to choose the one that will be just right for John. He will need something when I am gone to occupy his mind and to hold when his arms feel too empty.

They are all so cute and I feel bad for keeping Jimmy waiting. Suddenly one catches my eye; she is a bit frailer than her siblings but she is trying to overcome it by coming to see me. She is slightly clumsy but adorable and I know that she is the one. She licks my face and I cradle her in my arms seeing her happy face nestled beside my bracelet.

I give the woman in charge the instructions and she offers me sympathy and a kind smile. I write a letter I want to be delivered alongside the puppy following my death. I will contact my lawyer tomorrow just to ensure that everything goes well.

"What do you want to call her?" the woman asks.

I consider it for a moment. Thinking how you should never let anything stop you from loving that which you cannot help but love, I smile and say, "Daisy."

* * *

Jimmy returns both me and eventually my car back home as promised. John is there already and takes me protectively in his warm, strong arms. I know he wants to chastise me but can't bring himself to do it. Now _he_ is the one who fears that if he gives in to his anger that it will be my last impression of him.

Later that night, in our bed, my thoughts once again thinking of dying but balanced this time by thoughts of a small clumsy puppy, I turn and stare at my sleeping husband.

When I was a little girl, I enjoyed Summer vacation but it was always a bittersweet affair. Always at the back of my mind was the knowledge that it was only temporary. Soon I'd be back in school and wondering what had happened to all that time. Brushing John's dark hair from his face, all life suddenly felt like nothing more than borrowed time; not just for myself but for all of God's creatures under His heaven.

I finally allow myself to do the last bit of mourning I still have left to do. I have put it off long enough, knowing that when I have faced and accepted it it will be over and I can let go of this painful business of mourning.

In the dark bedroom, my husband sleeping beside me, I grieve for the loss of John Wick. I suffer the eventual seperation from the man that I love, a man who had done the impossible for me. If there is one thing that causes me the most suffering it is no longer being able to see him.

And not being able to be there for him when he needs me the most.

Suddenly my fear that I have to be strong for John seems somehow childish. This man who shared not only my life but my soul can handle it. His shoulders are magnificent things and have always been waiting for my sorrow and tears.

"John," I say and he opens his eyes a little too quickly to have actually been sleeping.

"I'm scared, John," I say and immediately I am in his arms.

He rubs the side of his face against mine and it is as wet as my own.

"I am going to miss you so much," I whisper and then, "I will always love you."

I feel his body shake from a sob he tries too hard to not release. "Bring me daisies, please, and remember me," I request.

"Forever," John answers before meeting my lips with his own.

* * *

I am in the kitchen taking my pills when I feel the floor give out under me. But it is not the floor: it is my legs. I watch as my medication bottle falls to the floor and how my pills spill out everywhere. I join them on the floor soon after.

I am staring at the linked daisies on my bracelet, feeling sorry that John will have to pick the pills and me up as everything turns dark.

My last thought is a desperate concern over how he will manage to pick up the broken pieces of his heart as well.

**Author's Note:**

> I love John/Administrator. That is where my heart is but I equally love Helen/John. I'm a monogamous shipper by nature. I don't ship characters with multiple people. However, John/Admin & John/Helen can exist together side by side in my heart. I know that Helen is John's forever. And I wanted to show my love and respect for them at least once in a fic devoted solely to them.


End file.
